He is farm policy’s pain in the neck

If you’re a conventional farm policy person – as most farm leaders and members of Congress are – Daryll Ray is becoming your biggest pain in the neck. In recent ag policy columns and September testimony before a House Agriculture subcommittee, Ray, founder and director of the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center at the University of Tennessee, has gored most of your favorite oxen. Exports. For instance, in an early October column, Ray exposed the big lie that export-based farm bills are the path to American farming gold. “Promising export-driven prosperity for crop agriculture is an audience pleaser,” the apple-cheeked professor observed, “but the odds are against it.” Fact is, “U.S. farmers have enjoyed export-driven prosperity only three times (for a total of just 14 years) in the last century – World War I, World War II and the mid-to-late 1970s – and none

About the Author

Alan Guebert was raised on an 800-acre, 100-cow southern Illinois dairy farm. After graduation from the University of Illinois in 1980, he served as a writer and editor at Professional Farmers of America, Successful Farming magazine and Farm Journal magazine. His syndicated agricultural column, The Farm and Food File, began in June, 1993, and now appears weekly in more than 70 publications throughout the U.S. and Canada. He and spouse Catherine, a social worker, have two adult children. farmandfoodfile.comMore Stories by Alan Guebert